The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.
Early on in certification of the 737 MAX, the FAA safety engineering team divided up the technical assessments that would be delegated to Boeing versus those they considered more critical and would be retained within the FAA.
But several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing.
would people be upset or okay with the FAA further delaying boeing in their race with airbus? you just know boeing would have launched a pr campaign about big bad govt messing up their business and costing american jobs. would we have said the FAA wouldn't purposely sabotage their business and any delays were because something was wrong and they required them to fix it? in the country i live in when the job loss sob stories came out and $200 bil company started spinning, the govt and regulatory overreach would be to blame.
since voters/taxpayers don't want our govt fully funding the regulatory apparatus then we should just forget about it and instead of giving boeing cover that the govt certified it, let them self-certify -- since that's what they're doing now anyway -- without the FAA's apparently fake seal of approval and when disaster strikes they fend for themselves in the courts.
we either have a robust regulatory system or none at all, this half stepping where industry is coming in to "help" our short-staffed, shrinking budget regulators is not going to work.
*goes and looks into 2020 BA put options.*
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